


The Wildest of Dreams

by tvconnoisseur



Category: Wildest Dreams - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvconnoisseur/pseuds/tvconnoisseur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marjorie Finn has wanted one thing her entire life. It is not Robert Kingsley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wildest of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/gifts).



_She hates him_.

When the studio first approaches her to star in _Wildest Dreams_ , that is her first thought. How would she ever survive month after month in Africa, shut away from sanity, with only Robert Kingsley to keep her company? Robert Kingsley, known as much for his on-camera posturing as his scandals, opposite her, known for nothing at all but a relentless work ethic.

(It doesn’t occur to her until later that perhaps that was the whole point: to reel in their high-risk, high-reward actor with an actress who wouldn’t fall for his charms.)

Marjorie imagines what it would be like to work with Robert. She imagines what sort of soirees he would throw. She has never attended a Robert Kingsley party, but they are infamous: incredibly lavish and delightfully exclusive. As the nights wear on, he gets drunker and drunker, and the girls get younger and younger, and by the end, he’s linked with every starlet in hopes of being a star.

Of course, they wouldn’t be _too_ disreputable. First of all, they would be in Africa. Second of all, as of six months ago, Robert Kingsley is a married man.

Marjorie knows Robert’s wife; _everyone_ knows Robert’s wife.  The great Lillian Gale, with two Academy Award nominations to her name. “Absolutely _robbed!_ ” the newspapers said, and Marjorie reluctantly had to agree. There is something in the way that Lillian spins words in her mouth, mocks the audience with her hands. She is fooling them, but they are in on the joke. 

Robert is Lillian’s second husband, and the busy bees have it that he’s the father of her daughter as well, even though she was still married to James Clark when Natalie was born. What else would have made the flyboy finally grow up?

Other than scandals and a stepchild, Robert Kingsley also has an Academy Award, and that is Marjorie’s final thought. Any film he stars in now instantly has the glow of potential Oscar glory, which means that by co-starring with him, she might finally get what she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl: a beautiful statue to put on her mantel where her father said it would never be. 

So when she’s presented with _Wildest Dreams_ and Robert Kingsley, despite her better instincts, she says yes.

___

When they meet for the first time, it is over drinks in Los Angeles. It’s not her idea or his; the studio has cast them on their names, but names alone will not bring the audience to the theater.  That requires chemistry, and the studio will pour limitless gin and tonics down their throats until they are halfway believable as star-crossed lovers.

Robert is waiting for her at the bar when she arrives. She’s seen him from afar, across a room, a red carpet, but here, next to him, the view is strikingly different. He is taller in person, grander. He takes up the entire room with his smile and she suffocates in it.

“Hello, darling,” he says, offering her a drink. “Ready to get started?" 

Marjorie realizes she’s not breathing and flushes. These are schoolgirl feelings, she recognizes, and feels the shame grow darker across her face. In a moment of distraction, she takes the drink from him. “Thank you.”

He clinks his glass to hers and takes a long sip that nearly empties his scotch into his stomach. “Not on our dime,” he says and she can feel the schoolgirl feelings dry up instantly. 

“I’m not here to get drunk with you,” she says, and he laughs. 

“Oh no? Then why?”

“I’m here so I can win an Academy Award.”

He nearly spits up his drink. “Oh, darling. Darling, darling, darling. Everyone knows next year is Lillian’s year.”

It takes everything in her not to throw her drink into his face. Instead, she places it onto the counter delicately, with full control. “I need to know that you’re going to take this seriously.”

“Oh, wondrously seriously,” he insists. “I’m going to Africa, that’s how serious I am." 

“ _We’re_ going to Africa,” she corrects him, and his eyes snap onto hers. They are red and watery at the edges.

“Yes. _We_.” He finishes his scotch. “I don’t know what you want from me, Miss Finn, but I can guarantee you won’t find it. My years of wanting pretty statues and pretty girls are behind me.”

His words slap her in the face. “I’m not trying to seduce you, Mr. Kingsley. And I’m insulted that you’d think I’d try.” He scoffs, and she continues. “Despite whatever crisis you’re in right now, this is an incredibly important opportunity for me. I will not let you ruin it.”

“By all means, do try.” The bartender has already poured him a new drink, and he raises this one to Marjorie. “Good luck, Miss Finn.”

This time she does throw the drink in his face.

___

Africa is not what she expected. She had imagined lush forests and exotic animals and pyramids, and when she finally gets there, she is mortified that Hollywood had tricked her.

Marjorie had always pictured her first time being a big star in a major motion picture would involve incredible perks: a beautiful trailer; delicious food; people waiting on her hand and foot. Instead, the true nature of filming abroad, in Africa no less, is apparent from day one. The living conditions are spartan, and there are no luxury items around. Not only that, but there is no one around to talk to.

Robert doesn’t seem to mind it. He arrives shortly after she does and, after taking one glance at the tents that have been set up to be their homes away from home for the next month, simply quips, “I’m glad I brought enough whiskey.”

___

The plot of _Wildest Dreams_ is simple: Abigail Anderson has lived a small, simple life in France when her dying professor father calls her to his side in Africa. She meets his graduate student, Stephen Barker, and they have a whirlwind romance cut short when Stephen is called to duty against Nazi Germany.

The first scene they film is Abigail and Stephen’s first kiss, right after they find out he has to leave on the next flight out. Marjorie had been confused by this, but Gary had insisted.

Gary Musterhausen is the sort of director who delights in capturing raw moments. Marjorie had asked for more rehearsals—really, any rehearsals—but Gary had refused. “You can tell when someone’s been kissed before,” he’d said. “You haven’t kissed Robert before, have you?” And then he’d laughed heartily and walked away.

In anticipation of this scene, Marjorie has tried to spend at least a small amount of time with Robert, to develop some sort of chemistry that isn’t blind rage, but he’s been impossible to isolate. She looks over at Robert—the first time she’s seen him in daylight—and she’s struck by how he is even more handsome when you can see every feature in his face, every muscle in his body. 

He must feel her gaze, because he catches her eyes and she looks away immediately, caught. She should not hate him. She should apologize. ( _HE should apologize_ , she internally counters.)

Marjorie stands in her spot, ramrod straight, and waits as Robert swaggers his way opposite her. He is so careless in everything that he does that it’s infuriating.

Gary calls action and suddenly Robert is not Robert, but Stephen—so much so that her lines almost don’t come to her. He is witty and masculine and stares at her like he adores her. This is not a playboy. This is a man who has won an Academy Award.

___

_“And what is it that you’ll miss about me?” Abigail asks. “My red lips and rosy cheeks?”_

_He holds her face in his hands. “Say you’ll see me again,” he says._

_“Even if it’s just in your wildest dreams?”_

_Stephen smiles. “Especially then.”_

_“I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go and not fall apart. My one condition is—”_

_He kisses her._

___

He kisses her and everything stops. Well, not everything. Her brain stops. Her heart stops. But her body leans into his, melts against him as his arms draw her closer. His lips are firm against hers, and she can taste whiskey on his tongue.

She is not Abigail being kissed. Abigail has never been kissed. Marjorie has been kissed hundreds of times. Hundreds of times, but never like this.

She doesn’t hear Gary call “Cut!”, but Robert does. He lets her go, letting her stand there, gap-mouthed.

“And _that_ is why we do this first!” Gary says triumphantly.

Marjorie is half-proud, half-flustered. Robert leans in, his lips brushing her ear. “If you want to win the Academy Award, you’ll need to do a little better than that.”

Marjorie lights on fire. “How _dare_ you!”

She shoves him violently. She sees his eyes snap to attention, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to push her back. Instead, he turns on his heel and walks back to his tent. “She’s crazy!” he shouts loudly to anyone who will hear him.

While her makeup artists are trying to fix her lipstick post-kiss, she can’t stop ranting. “He’s so bad! He’s terrible!" 

One of the girls, Marsha, pulls the lipstick back toward herself. “What did he say?” Her voice is timid.

Marjorie looks over at Robert, who is literally kicking apple boxes. What a temperamental child. “It doesn’t matter.” She takes a deep breath in. Unlike Robert, she is a professional. “I’m fine. The show must go on.”

___

After that first day, their scenes are almost uncomfortably tense. She’s always felt tense around Robert, but the tension is different now. It’s not a plateau of hatred: it’s leading somewhere. She can feel herself drawn to him: to slap him, to bite him…to kiss him.

Not that it matters. She refuses to be drawn to him.

They don’t talk much outside of actual scene work. He stays in his tent mostly, drinking and doing God knows what. Marjorie picks apart her script, doodling notes in the margins. Gary was so happy with her the first day, but that happiness has descended into discontent. “You need to be _alive_ ,” he shouts. “Be _alive!_ ”

She doesn’t know what “alive” is supposed to mean. She’s breathing. She’s alive. Regardless, she tries to be bigger, to be energized; none of it registers with Gary.

“You are a sheltered woman who is finally discovering herself. You have a reckless father who has been absent your entire life. You are his careful daughter who is finally doing what _you_ want, damn the consequences! I need to believe you want this! I need to believe you want _him_!” He gestures at Robert. “I don’t care if you hate him, you also need to _want_ him! Robert! Show her!" 

Robert looks over. He hasn’t been listening. “Show her what?”

“Show her how to be in the moment!” Gary pulls Marjorie next to Robert. “Marjorie, dear. There is a block here,” he says, motioning to her head. “You’re thinking too much. You’re stopping yourself from truly being here. From finding yourself in Abigail and being her completely. Let. Yourself. Go.”

Marjorie realizes her entire body has grown rigid, her arms folded in front of her chest. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes, she looks at Robert, who is staring straight back at her. They share that moment, long and thick and quiet. He doesn’t move, but something shifts inside of him, which shifts something inside of her.

She walks over to him and takes his hands in hers.

___

_“Someday when you leave me, I bet these memories follow you around,” Abigail says._

_Stephen says, “The memories don’t follow me._ You _follow me.”_

_She pulls him toward her, and captures his lips in hers._

___

This time, Robert is the one who is left gap-mouthed. Marjorie smiles at this; finally, she has made him unsteady. She’s left a touch of lipstick on his lips, and she smoothes it away with her thumb. His lips are warm and soft and pucker slightly at her touch.

“THAT is what I’ve been looking for!” Gary shouts triumphantly. “THAT is what wins you Academy Awards." 

Robert looks down at Marjorie. “Yes. It is.”

___

He says, “Let’s get out of here. Away from the crowds."

They have a rare day off. Marjorie had planned on catching up on her reading, but Robert’s offer is one she apparently cannot refuse. They drive and drive and finally Robert pulls over.

“Where are we?” she asks.

“You’ll see.”

She grabs the picnic basket she’d filled and they walk. They walk through a forest and just when Marjorie has had enough, she sees the sun again. “Oh my God,” she says, and Robert smiles.

In front of them is the largest waterfall she has ever seen. Torrents of rain are flowing over it, crashing down the depths below. It is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

“One of the PAs told me about this,” Robert says. “Location hunting.”

Marjorie sets up the picnic, and Robert leans back lazily, gazing at the sun. They sit in silence for a while, eating bread and drinking wine and waiting for the sun to set. At one point, he shifts and she hands him her canteen and he smiles.

She is surprised by how well she knows him, and is surprised that she is surprised: they’ve spent every day together for weeks. Of course she knows him. And yet, she doesn’t know him at all.

“I know you want Lillian to win—” she starts, but he cuts her off.

“I do. I don’t. I don’t know.” He places his head in her hands. “If I tell you something, you can’t tell anyone else. I wouldn’t tell you in the first place, but there’s no one in this goddamn place to talk to other than you.” 

Marjorie raises an eyebrow. “I’m flattered.”

“You know what I mean, Marjorie.”

She sighs. “I do." 

He takes a deep breath. “Natalie isn’t mine.”

Some sensation rises in her chest—shock, excitement, horror, betrayal. “Whose is she?”

Robert laughs. “Does it matter? My wife lied to me.”

“How long have you known?”

“For months.” He sighs. “That’s why I signed onto this movie. I had to get the hell away from her, from Natalie.” He takes a long sip of wine. “Do you know what it’s like when a child looks at you like you’re their whole world and they don’t even belong to you?” He laughs, and then the laugh turns into a cough. "Do you know what it feels like when the one thing you've always wanted turns out to be pretend?"

Marjorie inches over to lay her hand on his shoulder, but before she can, he’s kissing her. He’s taking off her jacket and laying her on the picnic blanket. He’s devouring her.

She is lost in it, lost in him. The way his chin loses its smoothness by the afternoon, the way his hands find their way beneath the volume of her skirt. Her body moves to the sound of her name on his lips.

And then sense hits her, suddenly, like a shot. She snaps away from him, buttoning her dress. Robert sits up, clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head.

“No, I’m sorry. You’re…” she hesitates. “Vulnerable.”

“I’m not vulnerable, I’m goddamn alone,” he says. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

Marjorie stands, walks close to the rush of the waterfall. She can imagine herself, arms out, eyes closed, ready to dive over the edge.

Robert comes out from behind her, his arms around her waist. She pulls his arms tighter around her. They stare at the sunset, watch blue turn to yellow turn to orange turn to red. “I do,” she says eventually. “I do feel the same way.”

___

That night, when everyone else is sleeping, Robert finds his way into Marjorie’s tent.

“No one has to know what we do,” she says, and he understands immediately. His hands tangle themselves into her hair as she unbuttons his shirt. His chest is broad and she inhales his skin. It sets her lungs on fire.

He breathes out her name, “Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie,” like a chant over her. His fingers curl against her hipbones, tracing their way down her stomach. And then, instead of his name, she just says, “God, God, God,” over and over again until she loses focus and he releases her from the heat of his body. 

 _Nothing lasts forever_ , she thinks to herself. _But this is getting good now._

___

Gary Musterhausen is a genius, but he is also a lunatic. Marjorie first has this thought when he proposes doing a scene with her and a lion.

“A lion?” she says, heart in her throat. “A real live lion?”

“Of course, dear! If you can out-act Robert Kingsley, I’m sure you can act opposite a lion.” 

Marjorie looks at Robert, his eyes feral and his body long, sinewy muscle. “I suppose you’re right.”

___

One night, Robert picks up the one of the letters she keeps on her end table. “Who are these from?”

With sudden panic, Marjorie rips them out of his grip. “No one you know.” _No one I’d care for you to know._

He holds her gaze. “You should write him back,” he says, and she realizes he thinks they’re from another lover.

“They’re from my father,” she says, the corner of the envelopes biting into her palm.

“Close, I take it?” Robert says drily. 

Marjorie’s eyes narrow. “He never believed in me.”

Robert cocks an eyebrow. “And the letters--” 

“Are from a poor, small man who wants all those things that shine to belong to him.”

Robert slowly, surely, takes the cards from her hands and puts them back on the table. “You realize what an extraordinary talent you are, don’t you?” She looks away, so he continues. “You are a spark that keeps igniting. I have never acted against anyone as alive as you.”

He pulls her into his lap and she rests her head in the crook of his neck. “You amaze me. Every single day. And you will win every award they can throw at you.”

And then she sobs and he kisses away her tears and they never speak of her father ever again.

___

One beautiful Sunday, he tells her he has a surprise. He reveals that he has a pilot’s license, and Marjorie finds herself in the seat of a biplane, breathless at the sights below. She sees zebras and giraffes and a wild, desert expanse she could only dream of from Nebraska. When they land, the sun is high in the sky and they run and they laugh and everything feels perfect and precious all at once.

___

Marjorie isn’t the only one with letters. Robert has dozens of them from Lillian, every last one of them unopened. There are so many that they’ve spilled over his desk and covered the floor.

The last week of filming, she notices a new photo on his desk. It’s of a small baby, not more than a month old. She asks who it is.

 “Christopher,” he says. And the subject is closed.

___

The final scene they film in Africa is the scene where Stephen returns. He was injured in the war, put up in a hospital, and nursed back to health by his now-fiancée. The whole movie has been building to this moment, this bittersweet reunion.

Marjorie hasn’t been afraid of it, but the moment she looks into Robert’s eyes, she realizes that they, just like Abigail and Stephen, are over. That Africa was just pretend for two lonely souls who had no one else to keep their hearts beating.

 She wants that to be true. If that’s true, her heart isn’t actually breaking apart.

___

_“Why did you come back?” Abigail asks._

_Stephen takes a step forward. “I needed to see you again.”_

_“Perhaps that’s something you should have left to your wildest dreams.” Abigail turns away from him._

_“Do you remember the sunset?” Stephen asks._

_Abigail nods. “The sun is always setting here.”_

___

They film their final scenes in Burbank. It’s just two more weeks of filming, but they are the most agonizing two weeks of her life. Robert avoids her completely when he’s not on set, and even though she’s home, she feels smaller, less.

She tries to will herself to not care, to get over it, but she can’t. She holds herself together until the last day of filming. Before he can leave, she pulls him aside. 

“What happened?” she asks. “What happened to us?”

His jaw tightens. “Lillian had a son. I have a son.”

Marjorie inhales sharply. “What? How is that possible?”

“She got pregnant before we left for Africa. She kept trying to reach me, to tell me—” he sighs. “I was so mad at her. I was mad at her for lying about Natalie so I’d save her from her train wreck of a marriage. But I have a son. All I’ve ever wanted in my life was to be a father, and now I am.” He brushes the hair from her face. “I’m so sorry.”

Her body convulses at his thin apology. “That’s it?” He doesn’t say anything. “That’s as much as we meant to you? ‘ _I’m so sorry’_?”

“Marjorie—”

“ _Say you’ll see me again_ ,” It’s his line, but she’s the one saying it. She says it like it’s part of her and not a creative falsehood designed to make audiences cry and swoon. His hands are in hers, slipping faster than she can hold onto them. She is holding onto him and love and desire and betrayal and everything. “Say you’ll see me again, even if it’s just pretend.”

And then suddenly she’s holding onto nothing at all.

 ___

 She has been waiting for and dreading the movie premiere for weeks. She’s changed her mind almost a dozen times on what dress to wear, something glamorous, something to make him realize she’s fine without him, before she realizes a dress is never going to win him back from the mother of his child.

She sees Robert and her heart is in her stomach, her eyes, her chest. He’s there and he is beautiful and he is hers.

She sees Lillian’s hands on his. No, not hers. Lillian’s. 

Lillian sees Marjorie across the crowd and waves. The moment Marjorie is close enough, Lillian reaches out, her hand tight on Marjorie’s wrist.

“It’s so lovely to finally meet you,” she says. 

“Likewise,” Marjorie manages.

“I hope my husband behaved himself. He’s known to fall off the wagon if I don’t keep my eyes on him.” Lillian is smiling, but the smile never reaches her eyes.

Marjorie glances over at Robert, who is trying to pull himself out of a conversation with Teddy Waltrip, their executive producer. He looks panicked, and Marjorie knows what she has to do. “He was the perfect gentleman,” she says. Lillian sighs, relieved. 

They have to take photos together—Marjorie and Robert and Gary and Teddy and Lillian—and they are all smiling and Robert is so close to her that she can feel him on her skin, under her skin. She looks away and takes the deepest breath she can.

Gary looks at her and then at the photographers. “Enough! We must all go see my masterpiece!” And then he takes Marjorie by the crook of her arm and they continue down the red carpet.

“Your star is just rising, Marjorie,” he says. “Don’t let anyone bring you down before you reach the top.” 

___

  _He holds her face in his hands. “Say you’ll see me again,” he says._

_“Even if it’s just in your wildest dreams?”_

___

 It’s too much and too little all at once. The film isn’t over, but they are. She gathers her things and leaves the theater. She starts at a walk and then accelerates to a run.

She hears him call her name behind her, remembers what it was like to feel him inside her when he’d say it. She doesn’t stop running.

She gets into the car and it peels off in the rain. She catches him in hindsight, her heart burned down to the ground.

___

On Oscar night, she wins and he loses. She gives a speech about love and gratitude and the wildness of dreams. When she is at the end of her speech, she sees him in the crowd, Lillian nowhere to be seen.

He catches her eye and gives her a wink. Marjorie pauses. “And to my new family, who lived with me and cared for me for months in a faraway country I never thought I would ever see; I will always, always have you in my heart.” She swallows. “Say you’ll remember me,” she says and the audience erupts.

___

 _“Say you’ll remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset,” Abigail says._  

_He kisses her then, his hand on her waistline, fingers curled to her hips. After they part, Abigail looks at him with sharp eyes and quivering lips: “Are we out of the woods yet?”_

_When Stephen nods, Abigail nods. “Good.”_

___

Marjorie stares out into the wide expanse, hundreds of people hanging on her every word. “Say you’ll remember me,” she repeats. “Because I will never forget you.”

And then Robert is to his feet, and so is Katherine, and Jimmy, and Marjorie cannot stop crying. Here, on this stage, she has achieved the dream of a small girl from nowhere Nebraska, of every small girl in every living room in every home across this ever-spinning globe.  She has become everything she has ever wanted to be.

Her heart, twice broken, stitches itself into something whole. She stares into that beautiful forever sunset, and smiles.

It was a sunrise all along.


End file.
